Cynewulf (, ; also spelled Cynwulf or Kynewulf) is one of twelve
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
poets known by name, and one of four whose work is known to survive today. He presumably flourished in the 9th century, with possible dates extending into the late 8th and early 10th centuries.
Cynewulf is a well-attested
Anglo-Saxon given name derived from ''
cyne'' "royal, of a king" and ''
wulf'' "wolf".
Known for his religious compositions, Cynewulf is regarded as one of the pre-eminent figures of
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
poetry. Posterity knows of his name by means of
runic signatures that are interwoven into the four poems which comprise his scholastically recognized corpus. These poems are: ''
The Fates of the Apostles'',
''Juliana'',
''Elene'', and
''Christ II'' (also referred to as ''The Ascension'').
The four signed poems of Cynewulf are vast in that they collectively comprise several thousand lines of verse. In comparison, the one work attributed to
Cædmon, ''
Cædmon's Hymn'', is quite succinct at nine lines.
Life
Dialect
Some basic statements can be made by examining such aspects as the spellings of his name and his verse.
[Stokes 2006] Although the
''Vercelli'' and
''Exeter'' manuscripts were primarily late
West Saxon in their scribal translations, it is most probable that Cynewulf wrote in the
Anglian dialect and it follows that he resided either in the province of
Northumbria
Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland.
The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...
or
Mercia
Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...
.
This is shown through linguistic and metrical analysis of his poems (e.g., ''Elene''), where in the poem's epilogue (beginning l.1236) the imperfect rhymes become corrected when Anglian forms of the words are substituted for the West Saxon forms. For instance, the manuscript presents the false rhyme which can be corrected when the middle vowel sounds of both words are replaced with an sound. The new rhyme shows a typical
Anglian smoothing of the . Numerous other "Anglianisms" in ''Elene'' and ''Juliana'' have been taken to be indicative of an original Anglian dialect underlying the West Saxon translation of the texts. Any definite conclusion to Cynewulf being either Northumbrian or Mercian has been hard to come by, but linguistic evidence suggests that the medial in the signed Cynewulf would have, during the broad window period of Cynewulf's existence, been characteristic of a Mercian dialect.
Date
All the evidence considered, no exact deduction of Cynewulf's date is accepted, but it is likely he flourished in the
ninth century.
A firm ''
terminus ante quem'' that can be put on the date of Cynewulf are the dates of the Vercelli and Exeter manuscripts, which are approximately in the second half of the tenth century.
Other than that, no certain date can be put on the author, leaving open the full range of Old English literature between the 7th and the early 10th centuries. Any attempt to link the man with a documented historical figure has met failure or resulted in an improbable connection. However, the presence of early West Saxon forms in both manuscripts means that it is possible an
Alfredian scribe initially translated Cynewulf's verse, placing him no later than the turn of the tenth century.
A tentative ''
terminus post quem'' is based on the two textual variations of Cynewulf's name, Cynewulf and Cynwulf. The older spelling of the name was ''Cyniwulf'', and Sisam points out that the tends to change to an about the middle of the eighth century, and the general use of the phases itself out by the end of the century, suggesting Cynewulf cannot be dated much before the year 800. Moreover, it has been argued that the "cult of the cross", which can find ground in Cynewulf's ''Elene'', achieved its cultural apex in the eighth century.
[Gradon 1958, p. 23]
Also deserving consideration is the argument that the
acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...
was most fashionable in ninth century poetry and Cynewulf's own acrostic signature would have followed the trend during this time.
Identity
Cynewulf was without question a literate and educated man, since there is no other way we can "account for the ripeness which he displays in his poetry". Given the subject matter of his poetry he was likely a man in
holy orders
In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordination, ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders inclu ...
, and the deep Christian knowledge conveyed through his verse implies that he was well learned in